Do High PR Links Matter?

Carmen in Baltimore, Maryland is mad as hell. She keeps reading how high PR links are what will get her site ranked. Nope. Actually, she’s been duped like millions of others…

Pete-

Everyone says good PR links are what I need. Do they really make a difference?

-Carmen

Carm baby–you have a good reason to be fuming. There’s a truckload of hype how high PR linkage will increase you to the first page of G/Y/B. It’s bunk and here’s why…

Google uses PR formulas for their internal algorithms to measure a site’s value. What does it mean? Who knows. Last I checked, Matt Cutts isn’t coughing up how it works. However, I can assure you of a few things I’ve seen working with my client partners since 2007…

None of them have high PR links

Yet they rank well

The reason is the opposite of what you’re being told by gurus

Remember, Google loves fresh, unique content. They dabble in admitting social signals contribute in ranking. There are very few research studies that can prove social is the magic dust everyone thinks will work.

Why am I right and everyone else is wrong? I’m not. But I am in the business of ranking client sites. So I have the data to prove (at least for my clients) that social is just a big, fat load of crapola. At least in how Google evaluates site authority.

Are you telling me if I have 8,356 Facebook Likes I’ll rank better than a site that has 1,397 pages and post with relevant content? Duh!

Carm–focus on content. I recommend writing at least a few target posts or pages per target keyword. Shoot for 400-500 words and then grow each piece of content up to 800-1000. Then repeat. This is the process I use for my clients and it works marvelously rather than hoping the social hype will be the magic formula.